Hear this: a guide to writing an academic English listening test

When creating an English for academic purposes (EAP) summative (end of course) test of listening for prospective university students, your first consideration is authenticity. In other words, what can you replicate in your test that happens during lectures or talks at universities?

You also need to know what you would like to test. Are you testing students’ ability to listen for main ideas (such as the lecturer’s viewpoint) or for details (such as dates, names or places)? And, finally, how will you do it?

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Here are a few tips on how you can approach writing an EAP listening test.

1. Make your listening script sound like an authentic lecture

When writing a script for your listening test, think about the audience. You are aiming to approximate an authentic university lecture, but its purpose is to test listening comprehension rather than teach. For this reason, your subject should be familiar to your students. You should structure the script to signal main ideas, but do this in a conversational style. You can include such phrases as: “Let me begin by…”, “In this lecture, I’ll cover three main areas…” or “I’ll now move on to my second point, which is…”

To give the script natural speech elements, consider including such expressions as: “Well…” and “Hmmm” and use an ellipsis (…) for your own reference to include hesitation.

You could also include wording like “Let me rephrase this…”, to show that the lecturer is clarifying a concept or being more precise, as often happens during a lecture. You can even include references to visual aids: “And in my slide here, you can clearly see that…” or “I’ll play a short video in a moment…”

2. Think about your questions as you write your script

Think about vocabulary, ideas and details you want to test as you are writing. Space out target phrases and words evenly in the script. These are words that will be key to answering the questions. Students should have enough time to respond before they start thinking about the next question.

If you wish to test spelling, you can reference an academic, critic or author and then, in your test questions, ask about the spelling of their name – for example: “As Dr Dylan Smiths argues…”

If you plan on using multiple-choice questions, you may need to plant red herrings in the script that will provide incorrect answer options.

3. Check your script for length and sense

An eight-minute lecture script will be about 1,300 words. Read it aloud to check the timing.

After you have written and edited your script, ask someone else (perhaps a couple of people) to read it for grammar, structure and sense. Remember that something which is obvious to you might be unclear to others.

When you’re happy with the script, you can record it. This is ideally done in a recording studio, so the recorded voice and the sound are of good quality and without background noise. If a recording studio is not an option, then recording the script using your phone in a quiet room should work.

4. Golden rules for writing listening-test questions

Now you have your script, you can write the test questions. For a 1,300-word script, it is reasonable to write about 20 questions. There are a few rules that guide this process.

• Your questions should be 13 words or less. This ensures that students don’t need to read too much and aren’t cognitively overloaded.
• Think about the order of question types. Include at least two consecutive questions of the same format, if possible. For example, you could start with two or three short-answer questions (see below), then move on to two or three multiple-choice questions.
• Avoid using difficult vocabulary or complex grammar that students may struggle to understand. This is so students don’t use too much test time reading and understanding the questions.
• Make sure your questions follow the order that the key words or ideas occur in the listening script.
• Keep model answers to a manageable length. Students should be able to write their answers after listening. Aim for two- or three-word phrases, but no longer than that.

5. Question types to consider

These question types are common in listening tests:

• Short-answer questions (SAQs): this question type tests understanding of details and general ideas and is relatively easy to write. For example: “What is the job of…?” or “Why is London mentioned?”
• Sentence completion: this type is a statement that needs to be completed (for example: “Dr Dylan specialises in…”). It is an SAQ to some extent because you turn a question into statement.
• Notes completion: this question type is more challenging to write and requires more thinking from students. You could include a table that requires headings or diagrams with gaps to be filled in. It can be useful for testing details and main points.
• Multiple-choice questions: this is the hardest question type to write because it requires having distractors (wrong options), which use information from the script that isn’t the correct answer. You can use this question type to test both details and main points.
• True/false/not given: consider using three options rather than just true or false. This deters students from guessing because they have a less than 50 per cent chance of getting the right answer. This question can be used for testing both details and general ideas.

What to avoid in your listening test

• Don’t write about topics that might be sensitive such as death, natural disasters, politics or religion.
• Don’t write about topics that are too complex to understand.
• Don’t rush into writing a script without doing research about your chosen topic. You need to be able to explain concepts and ideas in a clear way.
• Don’t spend too much time editing one question. If you’ve changed it four times and it doesn’t work, it won’t. You need to come up with a new question, possibility targeting a different piece of information.
• Don’t think that the first draft of your script or questions is good enough. Be prepared to rewrite them a few times at least.

Writing authentic EAP listening tests is challenging and it should be done in a team, where edits are proposed a few times and the script is rewritten. As an author of such a test, you need to be flexible enough to accept positive criticism, and as an editor you need to be able to offer constructive advice.

Anna Ziomek is a lecturer in English for academic purposes with assessment responsibilities in the International Study and Language Institute at the University of Reading.  

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